Investing in high quality preschool: lessons from an urban setting

Abstract

Large numbers of children of low income families in the United States arrive at kindergarten already far behind their more affluent peers on measures of school readiness. In the absence of any federal preschool policy and amidst alarm about this growing divide, universal prekindergarten (UPK) programs have been launched around the United States, at both the state and local levels, to address the school readiness gap. Invest in Children, a public/private partnership in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland, OH) launched a UPK program of high quality, affordable preschool nine years ago. The program’s creation, implementation and challenges are discussed along with evaluation findings that document its positive impact on school readiness. Lessons learned are discussed in terms of the impact of political and economic shifts, as well as state policy changes, on this local program. The program’s planned expansion and enhancements to program design and evaluation are also described.     

Teaching Plan‐Do‐Study‐Act (PDSA) in a Supply Chain Context: A Paper Football In‐Class Activity

We develop a single‐class period learning game for the Plan‐Do‐Study‐Act (PDSA) improvement cycle. The experiential activity walks teams through the PDSA problem‐solving process as they create paper American footballs and improve their performance using each step of the cycle. The game is one of the first to focus on PDSA. Key benefits include increased student attention, engagement, and learning. Empirical tests show that participant pre‐ and post‐test scores regarding their understanding of each phase of PDSA improved 21.2% after completing the game. Additionally, the treatment group performed 16.6% higher than the control group. In participant perception questions, 85% of participants felt the game was more effective than lecture or reading, 93% felt the game was fun, 95% felt the game improved their understanding of PDSA, and 98% felt the game was engaging.     

Poofy Dresses and Big Guns: A post-structuralist analysis of gendered positioning through talk amongst friends

This article uses data collected from a class of eight to nine year olds to show the specific ways children are defining their gendered positions within the context of their same sex friendship groups. Children's subjectivities are described as both actively formed and also positioned within the surrounding (gendered) discourses. This article will show specific ways that structure and agency is played out through talk amongst friends. Importantly, analysis of the talk indicates that children are able to both align themselves as well as challenge dominant gendered discourses. The article argues that informal talk amongst friends is an important space for children to make sense of masculinities and femininities and to develop their identities, particularly in the context of school.     

爱国者

我是一名初中生，对于我而言，学习英语却总是那么的难．看着别人的英语成绩直线上升．心中有说不出的羡慕。而自己的英语却是一味的下降，最后，对它失去了兴趣。因此．我的成绩一落千丈，遭到老师的批评，家长的教训。我也特别的清楚英语是主课．是必须学习的科目，升高中英语有120分，对于想考上好的高中的我来说，无疑还是在原路上徘徊、思考着。     

Advocacy for gender minority students: recommendations for school counsellors

Abstract

Research shows that teachers’ and educators’ responses to gender diversity issues in schools either improves or limits the experiences of students. The school counsellor has an important role to play in this process by working closely with other stakeholders to advocate for transgender, intersex and genderqueer (TIG) students. Following a review of recent developments in the USA, recommendations are made and resources identified to assist school counsellors in validating TIG students, and improving school systems in pursuit of their academic, social and emotional success.     

Medical faculty use of the journal literature, publishing productivity and the size of health sciences library journal collections.

OBJECTIVES: This 1990-1991 study explored the relationship between the size of health sciences library journal collections and the number of different journals cited by medical school faculty in departments of biochemistry and medicine. METHODS: Two regression equations, including variables associated with a national stratified sample of 622 faculty who published articles during those two years, were used to explore factors correlated with variations in faculty use of the journal literature and faculty publishing productivity. RESULTS: Results suggest that, after controlling for other variables in the models, neither the number of different journals those faculty cited, nor the number of articles they published, had statistically significant correlations with the number of journals in the health sciences library collection. CONCLUSION: The traditional view that the size of an academic health sciences library's journal collection is a good measure of how well that library is positioned to support faculty research may not be entirely accurate.     

Why screen newborns for cocaine: service patterns and social outcomes at age one year.

OBJECTIVE: To compare baseline characteristics, service provision, and child placement for infants exposed to cocaine in utero based on postnatal screening results. METHODS: We studied a retrospective cohort of 40 consecutive drug-exposed, but seemingly healthy term infants who underwent urine drug screening in the newborn nursery of a community hospital. Using clinical and service agency data, two cocaine-exposed cohorts were compared (a) screen-positive at birth (n = 22) versus (b) screen-negative at birth (n = 18). RESULTS: Both cocaine-exposed groups had similar infant birth weights, levels of paternal involvement, maternal ages, gravidity, parity, and lengths of gestation. Mothers in both groups had similar histories of prostitution, poor home environment, drug use, and prenatal drug rehabilitation. Mothers of screen-positive infants were more likely than mothers of screen-negative infants to have other children in foster care (27% vs. 6%, p = .07), to have experienced previous interventions by child protective services (CPS) (55% vs. 17%, p < .01), to have had no prenatal care (32% vs. 6%, p = .09), and fewer prenatal visits (4.7 vs. 8.6, p = .02). Compared to screen-negative infants, more screen-positive infants were referred to a high-risk infant tracking program (91% vs. 6%), referred to CPS (100% vs. 33%), placed outside the mother's home (50% vs. 22%), and had their mothers referred to drug rehabilitation (36% vs. 11%), (p < .01 for each). By 1 year of age, support services differed little between exposed cohorts. However, 6 of 22 screen-positive infants were in foster care and 3 were placed for adoption, while only 1 of the 18 screen-negative infants was in foster care and only 1 had been placed for adoption. There were no services available in this community to provide coordinated or comprehensive services or drug treatment specific to the needs of drug using mothers and drug exposed infants. CONCLUSIONS: Despite similarities between cocaine-exposed infants cared for in a normal newborn setting (with and without positive urine drug screens at birth), differences in referral services were noted. More striking than these differences was that services for families with drug-exposed infants are inadequate to even meet the needs of those families in our setting deemed to be at highest risk. Neonatal drug screening needs to be paired with effective services.     

Fathers' and Mothers' Parenting Predicting and Responding to Adolescent Sexual Risk Behaviors

Transactional models of problem behavior argue that less effective parenting and adolescent problem behaviors coevolve, exerting bidirectional influences. This article extends such models by analyzing growth trajectories of sexual risk behaviors and parenting processes among 3,206 adolescents (aged 13–18) and their residential parents. Within individuals, increases in regular family activities prospectively predicted declines in adolescents' risky sexual activities. In contrast, increases in risky sexual activities predicted heightened father knowledge. Between-individual comparisons revealed bidirectional links between more involved parenting, particularly family activities and father knowledge, and lower adolescent risky sexual activity. Results highlight the importance of family activities as a protective force for adolescents and suggest that fathers may react differently than mothers in the face of youth problem behaviors.     

Bing: The New Guy in Town

All Aboard the Internet

Bing: The New Guy in Town